


Spectral

by letscallitink



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Drabbles, F/M, Gallifrey, Gallifreyans being Gallifreyan, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who), Post-Episode AU: s02e13 Doomsday, Reunion, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Rose Tyler saves the day, Shorts, So AU I can't even, The Master Has Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-15 03:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12312558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letscallitink/pseuds/letscallitink
Summary: A major AU told in a series of shorts. Instead of being caught by Pete, Rose Tyler falls into the Void on Doomsday... or does she? The Bad Wolf has arrived on Gallifrey, the prophecy is to be fulfilled, and the Doctor begins seeing ghosts in the TARDIS.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is so massively AU that I can't even begin to tell you how much, so you'll just have to figure it out as you go along. Just know that it's a reunion story and that, if you're willing to wait for it, there's a happy ending.

They are glorious and golden and not at all what she expected. She expected them to be… like him. Somehow. He was her only example of his species, after all, and he so often seemed so human that it was hard to pick out the alien parts of him and say, "There, that's what a Gallifreyan is!" But she had tried. She had taken his boundless energy and enthusiasm and eccentricity and fiery temper as examples of what it was to be a two-hearted alien.

She was wrong.

When she lands on the sands of Gallifrey, it is a hot and wonderful contrast to the white chill that had been the open tear in the universe. The Void. The Emptiness. The Space Between Spaces. The death that she had just been falling into, only to tumble down the curving scoop of an orange dune. The sand was coarse, but she could feel it, and the sun was bright, but it was colorful, and the wind whistled unpleasantly, but it  _did_ whistle, and that meant that it was not the Void, and so she loved it.

If there was any doubt in her mind that this was not the Void, it was dashed into that whistling wind by the appearance of people. Human people, or so she thought for a moment, before she saw the language printed on the plates attached to their robes. It wasn't a human language, but she recognized it, and the only alien language she could recognize by sight was  _his_.

It was hard to miss, after all.

She was crying when they found her. Mascara ran down her face in charcoal streaks, slashing her cheeks like war paint, and her cries pulsed with despair. Despair because, although this was not the Void, it could not be home, either, or anywhere near it. She had fallen through a  _hole_  in the  _walls of the universe_. She was somewhere the Doctor could not find her, and she could not find him. They were separated, not by death, but by impossible distance. Somehow, that seemed worse than dying.

They bring her before more of their own kind, other Gallifreyans, and it is like salt in an open wound that she nothing of him in them.  _She was wrong_ , indeed. There is nothing in them that can sooth the hurt in her singular heart. Her heart, which feels like it is bleeding. The blood flows forth and spills onto their smooth stone floors. It pours and pours and pours, turning everything around her red with pain. They can't see it; neither can she, but she feels it. She feels herself bleeding out. She wonders, vaguely, if it will kill her. If she will fall to the floor here, a prime example of death by woe.

"What are you?" they ask her.

And because the grief and fear roll over and over within her like scorching waves of ice and fire, she does not say that she is Rose. She doesn't feel like Rose. She feels like a terrible creature with gnashing teeth and a screaming howl. Her chest aches to scream. To sing the song that she only remembers as a shadow, because, sometimes, the TARDIS would hum it to her and Rose would know the notes even though she can't recall learning the song.

"I am the Bad Wolf," she says, because that is what she is, and that is the song that beats in her brain.

It all goes very strangely after that.


	2. Twilight

They are in,  _apparently_ , a  _pocket dimension_. One of them says it to her offhandedly, only to turn away from her with a bowed head, like it was stupid of him to mention. Maybe he thinks it was, but Rose has learned something valuable. It's not so terribly hard to figure out what  _pocket dimension_  means, especially with how much of the Doctor's chit-chat she's actually caught onto. She feels silly for not noticing, now, because she can look up to the sky and see that there's no sun. It's light outside, like a fading sunset of murky yellow and strained-out blue, but there's no sun anywhere. The light is without any discernable. It dims and brightens at seemingly random intervals, or so they've told her. She hasn't noticed any change.

The question is, how did a whole planet get  _into_  a pocket dimension? And how do they  _live_  here, without a sun?

She hasn't asked that yet. She will, later, when the screaming pain dulls to a throb. But not now. Now, she feels like she's floating along, or being dragged, one or the other, leaving a trail of mourning blood behind her. Because she knows, now, even more than she did before, that the Doctor will not find her. And, even if he does, he will not be able to reach her. This is another dimension, separate from her own, and they closed the walls. No ship, not even the TARDIS, can reach this place. Not without bringing the universe crashing down on their heads.

She is trapped, forever. Or however long a forever can be. This grief just might kill her. Her heart already feels as though it has ruined itself with its incessant twisting and pounding.

There is a man,  _Gallifreyan_ , who seems important. More important, that is (all of them have this heavy, ostentatious sort of presence to begin with). His robes are a deep, layered red, each fold edged and encrusted with golden designs proclaiming him to be… something. Lots of circles. If she stares long enough, she thinks that for a moment or less, the circles mean something. But her head hurts from crying and her eyes ache and her throat stings and every muscle in her body suffers, so she does not have it in her to stare, or ask questions, or be her defiant self.

_Brilliant, pink and ye_ – no. Just… defiant. She'll leave it at that. Little rebel.

A little rebel brought before someone who might just be the king of this thrice-cursed pocket dimension.

The maybe-king stares are her with eyes that she can't quite catch the color of, so she only knows that they gleam with a dark intelligence. There – that's not so unlike the Doctor, is it? But this man frightens her. Deep inside, she knows that this is  _Gallifreyan_  in a way that the Doctor never was. This is a vicious, ancient predator. Not something she ever thought she would label a person, much less a man who looks middle-aged and fairly handsome, but true nonetheless.

"Do you know who I am?" he asks with expectant baritone.

_Should I?_  She looks up at him. Ah, now she can see his eyes. Green, dark forest green, flecked with gold. She doesn't recognize them at all. She doesn't know him or anything about him other than that he is important and terrifying.

But the Wolf knows, and she is the Wolf, and so she answers him.

"Rassilon."

The First Lord of Time smiles.


End file.
